There was a fanfiction story I once read that simply presumed that those critters knew how to safey evacuate a consciousness from its physical medium, and would have likely offered such insurance to a productive and esteemed employee, in case they got beheaded by barbarians, or met other misfortune... :P

...but who knows. Maybe working for them included the risk of retirement terms not being respected. :P

Reminds me of a story from the Culture universe where a likewise very productive representative of a covertly operating advanced civilisation met a very similar fate, except a spacecraft decided to snatch his head a moment after the event, and perform a bit of resuscitation until a replacement body could be grown. :P